The Thebaid
Page 18
some went to war with clubs, like pastoral dwellers;
some drew a bow, and some used stakes for weapons;
some crested horsehair on their helmets; some
wore leather-covered casques, Arcadian fashion,
or fit Lycaon bear-jaws to their skulls.
The neighboring town, Mycenae, did not lend
troops or assistance to the ranks and hearts
sworn to the cause of Mars. This was the time
a feast of human flesh was taking place,
Ω∂ STATIUS, THE THEBAID
the time the sun moved backward: it was when
• two other brothers merged their souls in battle.
Now Atalanta heard reports: her son,
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as chief, led all Arcadia to war.
Her legs gave out, her weapons fell beside her,
and faster than the flying winds she left
the forest, over rocks, across full rivers—
their banks no obstacles—just as she was,
her blond hair streaming loosely in the wind,
clutching her flowing robes, like some wild tiger
pursuing hunters who have seized her cubs
and ridden o√ on horseback. Now she stopped,
and leaned her breast against opposing reins—
‘‘O son’’ (his eyes looked down; his face was pale),
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‘‘what causes this mad passion? Why must you,
at your age, show unseemly fortitude?
Can you train troops for war, support the weight
of Mars, or join with men who carry swords?
I wish you could! I almost fainted when,
just recently, you pressed your hunting spear
into a deadly boar and fell down backward.
Had I not sped a shaft from my curved weapon,
where would you be? My polished bow and arrows
and this gray horse with black spots you so trust
won’t save you in the wars. You are a boy
who seeks to undertake great challenges
but hardly old enough to love a Dryad
or know the older passions of the nymphs
of Erymanthus. Portents tell the truth:
just recently I saw, to my amazement,
the temple of Diana trembling, and
the goddess seemed to scorn me. Votive gifts
fell from the cupola. My bow hand wavered,
I grew unsteady, and I could not aim.
‘‘Your honor will be greater if you wait
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till you are older. Your pink cheeks will darken.
Your face will lose my features. I will find
you wars, give you the iron swords you crave.
BOOK ∂ ΩΣ
I will withhold my tears and not recall you.
Now bring your armor home! O let him go,
Arcadians! Are you born from oaks and stones?’’
She’d have continued, but her boy consoled her,
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as did the o≈cers. They dimmed her fears.
It was not easy to release her son,
but now the trumpets blew their dreadful signal,
and she unclasped him from her loving arms;
she recommended him to King Adrastus.
–?–?–?–
Now, in another country, in the city
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founded by Cadmus, citizens of Mars
despaired because their king was mad, and they
were terrified by not unfounded rumors
that said an army had departed Argos.
Because they were embarrassed by their king
and by his quarrel, they were slow to act.
At last they mobilized, but no one felt
driven to draw a sword, nor was it sweet
to put one’s back behind a father’s shield
or tend the harness of a wing-foot steed—
such joys as warfare brings. There was no fire
or spirit, just reluctance to proceed
and downcast soldiers who complained about
their bad luck to their parents, who concurred.
They grudged the loss of their young wives’ best years,
the babies growing sadly in the womb.
Mars, god of arms, inflamed no one. The walls
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and mighty towers Amphion built had fallen.
Years of neglect lay bare the old, worn sides
of what was once upraised, with sacred faith,
as high as heaven. Now they were repaired,
but inattentively, since no one cared.
Nevertheless, mad keen for war and vengeful,
the cities of Boeotia moved, not to
assist Thebes’ evil king, but to aid their neighbor.
ΩΠ STATIUS, THE THEBAID
That king was like a wolf who storms a sheepfold,
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who turns his heavy eyes from side to side
as he withdraws. Fouled blood drips down his chest
and gory bits of wool fleck his raw breath.
If when the slaughter is revealed the shepherds
give chase, he runs away, but he is not
unconscious of his fierce accomplishment.
Chaotic Rumor added yet more panic:
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the Argive cavalry was said to be
scattered along Asopos, wandering.
Some said that Mount Cithaeron had been taken,
home of the Bacchic revels; some, Teumesos.
News came that through the shadows of the night
• Plataea burned her watch fires, vigilant;
that home gods strove in Thebes; blood filled the Dirce;
monsters were born; once more the cli√ sphinx spoke.
Who did not know, who had not seen these things?
But, in addition, this new prodigy
disturbed uneasy hearts: the queen who led
the woodland choir was seized by sacred frenzy.
She spilled her canister of flowers and ran
down from the Bacchic mountain to the plain,
waving a three-pronged pine torch. Here and there
it cast a somber, scarlet light and her
loud clamoring amazed the startled city:
?’’All-powerful Nysaean father! you
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for long have not concerned yourself with our
ancestral people. Even now, you move
unceasingly across the frozen North
and with your iron thyrsus weaken Thrace.
You cover up Lycurgus with your vines.
You race insanely down the swollen Ganges.
You cross the Red Sea’s furthest barriers
to eastern lands and—brilliantly triumphant—
• let gold flow from the sources of the Hermus.
Meanwhile your progeny among the nations
who consecrate their festivals to you
know war and tears and fear and horrid brothers.
BOOK ∂ Ωπ
We reap the wages of a king’s injustice
and lay aside your ivy-covered thyrsus!
‘‘Transport me, Bacchus, to the land of frost
• that lasts forever, past the Caucasus
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where howls of Amazons in arms reecho:
these I would rather face than tell about
the criminal o√enses of our kings
whose family is cursed. You urge me, Bacchus,
but I owe you another frantic oath.
Two equal bulls—of similar renown,
born from one blood—collide. They join their leaning
foreheads and mix their lofty horns together,
vicious in turn and angry, and they die.
You are the worst of these, and must desist:
the fault is yours, Eteocles! Alone
you wreck your homeland to protect your mountain
&nb
sp; but everything you do subverts your aim—
another king will rule your forest glade.’’
She spoke this prophecy. Her face turned cold;
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as Bacchus dispossessed her, she grew silent.
The king felt sick. This portent left him weak.
Unable to endure his various terrors
he did what those who face uncertainty
do when afraid: he looked for answers from
the skill and shaded wisdom of Tiresias,
the ageless prophet.
And Tiresias said
his method for communing with the gods
was not to slaughter herds of sheep, or watch
birds fly, or seek the truth in quivering entrails.
Rather than quizzing cauldrons, calculating
the stars, or burning frankincense whose smoke
would hover over altars, he raised ghosts
• who crossed the threshold of grim Death. By means
of rituals of Lethe he would purge
King Laius, who at that time was submerged
under the waters of the stream Ismenos.
Ω∫ STATIUS, THE THEBAID
Before he did so, he prepared torn entrails
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of sheep, incense of sulphur, fresh-grown herbs,
and always while he worked he muttered prayers.
There stands an ancient, deep, capacious forest,
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sturdy, always in leaf, that sunlight never
penetrates. Winter’s shortest days do not
diminish it, nor is it influenced
by warm south winds or cold winds from the north.
Beneath its noiseless canopy, a vague
shiver augments the silence, and a pale
absence of light makes darkness visible.
These shadows know Latona’s virgin daughter,
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who makes her home in groves. These sacred shades
conceal the cedars, pines, and suchlike trees
that hold her e≈gy within the woods.
Her hounds bay every night, and through the forest
her arrows whiz unseen. She hunts when she
emerges from the threshold of her uncle,
back in her better form, as fair Diana.
When she is weary and the mountain sun
is high and makes her sleepy, she positions
fixed spears around her, then removes her quiver.
She leans her lavish neck on that to rest.
Beside her lie the open fields of Mars,
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the fertile soil of Cadmus, who was first
to plow it, dared to turn the fatal furrows
before the consanguineous earthmen fought
and spilled decaying blood on lands he dug.
At midday, or the solitude of night,
this ill-starred earth exhales tumultuous winds.
Black earthborn figures rise and fight as phantoms.
The frightened plowman, who has just begun,
now flees and drives his madding oxen home.
The aging prophet found the soil disposed
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to Stygian rituals; the earth was rich
with living blood. Here he commanded men
to bring him sheep of darkest fleeces, black
BOOK ∂ ΩΩ
cattle, the choicest beasts of all the herds.
Sad Mount Cithaeron and the Dirce groaned,
the valleys rang, then quieted, astonished.
Tiresias entwined their fearsome horns
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with garlands of dark flowers—he did this
himself—and then, beside the well-known forest,
he first poured, in a hole dug in the earth,
nine lavish o√erings of wine and gifts
of springtime milk, Actaean drops of honey,
and blood that pleases ghosts. He poured as much
as arid earth would drink, then called for logs.
The mournful priest asked that three mounds be raised
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to Hecate, and as many for the Furies
(daughters of evil Acheron). And for
the king of hell—for you, lord of Avernus—
he raised a pile of pine as high above
the ground as it was sunk below. A less
imposing altar he erected next to this
accumulated mass. It was for Ceres,
who dwells beneath the earth. Around these mounds
he scattered cypress branches, signs of mourning.
The cattle held their heads high as the sword
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and o√erings of fresh, whole grains descended,
then fell beneath the blows. Next unwed Manto,
Tiresias’ daughter, caught their blood in bowls
and poured the first libations. Now three times,
as she was bidden by her holy father, she
circled each pyre and tossed in still-warm organs
and pulsing entrails, nor did she withhold
fast-burning flames from darkened leaves and branches.
Flames crackled in the sticks; the fires roared
through the sad mounds, and when the heat increased,
when fiery vapors filled his empty eyes
and blew hot on his cheeks, the prophet howled;
he made the bonfires quake:
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‘‘You, in the seat
of Tartarus—voracious Death’s harsh realm;
o you, most savage of the brother gods,
∞≠≠ STATIUS, THE THEBAID
you whom dead shades attend, who portions out
eternal punishments to malefactors
there in the palace of the lower world:
open the silent, void domains of grave
Persephone to one who pounds the gates.
Set free the throngs who populate the night,
and let the ferryman recross the Styx.
Grant a full cargo for his wooden ship;
give passage to those shadows, and permit
more than a single means to reach the light.
‘‘O Hecate, Perses’ daughter! O sad Arcas,
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equipped with sta√ of o≈ce! Lead the pious
Elysians in separate groups, and let
Tisiphone direct to daylight those
in Erebus who died committing crimes,
of whom so many ghosts descend from Cadmus.
Let her lead them with torch of flaming yew;
let her give three swings of her mighty serpent;
and do not let the heads of Cerberus
be obstacles to those deprived of light.’’
The old man spoke, and waited with his daughter—
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Manto, Apollo’s virgin—both attentive,
fearless, because the god was in their hearts.
Only the king of Thebes, Eteocles,
was overwhelmed by terror and afraid